Got the 3cd set today and currently enjoying on Halloween eve 40 years to the day. The costume box arrives Friday. I imagine just plugging that stick into the car and listening non-stop for a month or so.

The boxset arrived(Mines 4636 of 5000) and I know you've heard it before but...... WOWY ZOWEY!!!!

This is my first USB audio purchase ever and I have to say it's the best quality recording I've ever heard in the Zappa live released recordings to date.

Seriously amazing production and what a fantastic experience to have the ability to experience 6 complete shows in a row. I'm hoping that future USB offerings might be able to offer 24bit 192KHz files even, but that said I'm over the moon happy with these and can understand why the sample rate was set at 44.1KHz, (you receive a 16Gig USB stick and there's slightly more than 15gigs to fit all the concerts on the stick. So in short it's a space issue. Going to 48KHz or 96KHz would have pushed them all way out of the 15.2gig limit of the stick. I'm sure they could have chosen a larger stick but of course that would have ended up being at a greater cost to us, the fans to pay for it. That said I would pay the extra to get a higher sample rate if possible on future USB stick releases.)

The box is lovely and proudly sit's on top of my Zappa display stand. Check out the photos of me going nuts dressed in my shiny new Zappa outfit and mask.(Imagining I was at the concert and performing guest guitar work for the show.) It's a brilliant addition and was terrific for playing my guitar along with the concerts. A total hoot and a gas.

Now for the important part of this review..... THE ACTUAL RECORDINGS.

OK, OK!!! I'm getting there.

So as most people should now be aware you get not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4.... but 6, yes SIX, that's right 1+1+1+1+1+1 incredible Frank Zappa shows to enjoy and in stunning 24bit 44.1KHz audio. This allows just enough Hi definition sound to experience these concerts in a clarity I haven't yet had the joy of experiencing. I'm talking better than the 'You Can't Do That On Stage!' recordings. I'm talking light years ahead of the 'The Road Tapes' recordings and yes even better than the DVD 'Baby Snakes' which has some video footage from these very concerts and that most of the music for that movie comes from.

Yes indeed these are recordings to treasure and if your a Frank Zappa fan you seriously can not deny yourselves these unforgettable concerts lovingly now available for your ears to enjoy on a handy USB stick. Now on the stick, there was some doubt as to quality and obtaining the recordings again if the USB stick died etc. To that end I will completely declare I backed up the entire USB to my hard drive for personal back up reasons only. The main reason is not wanting to loose them in case something happens to the USB stick(the most likely issue, when it get's 'permanently borrowed' if you know my meaning). That said I aim to keep it safely in the box and hope no one walks past it with a heavy duty magnet or anything as it's a seriously cool way to have all this great work available and to play back on HiFi equipment that can handle it. Also on that issue, it looks like the associated parties will be able to assist you so long as you don't loose your box which is fair enough as that's the proof that you actually purchased the box set and are not just trying to grab a freebie. Best of all there even committed to ensuring the quality of the release by providing downloads to updates if error's etc are found. (looking forward to hearing what the error was in the updated file. It should fit on the stick to. ). Also the actual stick is really groovy and felt like I was getting a Halloween Candy from Frank Zappa himself.

The concerts range from between 25 and 30 tracks performed or samples of a crowd moment/audience participation etc provided. The length of each concert is an incredible 2.5 to 3 hours plus. This was a serious Rock band, the likes of which a lot of artists out there could learn from in terms of providing true value for money. Frank shows in these concerts that he seriously cared about his fans and gives each and every concert his all. All members of the band just seem to get better and better and I can't believe how incredible they pushed through 2 shows a day for the first 2 days but they do and they keep striving for excellence. I've heard concerts by bands like Pink Floyd for example that were really horrible. No effort, they sound half pissed and the quality is terrible. Not so with a single concert in this fine set of performances. I think what I enjoyed the most was having a complete concert experience, warts and all. Often you get a live performance with edits and to be honest it kind of annoys me. Not so here, totally magnificient complete concerts to enjoy.

All your favorites are played here and I was stunned at how the band had come along from say the Halloween 76 concert that was made available on a special HiFi audio DVD release and this release of the 77 concerts. AMAZING. My personal favourite highlight are the 25 - 30minutes plus versions of 'Wild Love' which I'd only heard as a 4min ditty on the legendary 79 album 'Sheik Yerbouti.'So in terms of offering some new recordings to hear, the set is worth it just for those magnificent performances (they put me into Zappa heaven.) Another nice feature is the stunning audio for 'Titties and Beer.' with the hilarious messages against Warner Brothers in concert performance 6. Terry Bozio's solo's are incredible and I'll bet even Terry himself will be glad to have these recordings to enjoy of his earlier work. Adrian Belew get's better and better as the shows progress and I was thrilled with his work on these recordings(in particular 'City Of Tiny Lights'.) Tommy Mars and Peter Wolf perform stunning keyboard works throughout but I really enjoyed there work on 'Punks Whips.' Ed Mann adds some superb ornamental percussion and Patrick O'Hearn pumps out a mean set of bass lines throughout the concert. Zero complaints, there all utterly superb musicians. It's a lot of fun and even the audience participation material is interesting. Oh and another thing for those of you that will be listening to these concerts, please do let me know how you would and might dance to 'The Black Page #2.'

The magic doesn't stop there however as there's a superb 28 page PDF file included that has some terrific photo's I'd never seen before and some great words from people who either performed or where actually there in the concert(well actually all people performed in the concert in some way.) A great track listing begins the booklet then a terrific plethora of fond memories shared along with a pile of actual photos from these amazing concerts and the Frank Zappa crew during the traveling of the tour. Warning: Some photos may be hard to handle by sensitive viewers but Frank Zappa fans will simply adore them.

In conclusion this box set get's a 10/10 from this fan. I'm hoping future sets will consider going all out with the sample rates but I do understand that with higher sample rates comes more storage space required so these may take some time(I was reading the blurb from Road Tapes #3 for example which exclaimed that the Analog tapes were transferred at 24bit 192KHz. Oh to be able to purchase a USB stick version of such a recording instead of the down converted 16bit 44.1KHz CD release.). This box set has the possibility of being able to own the perfect high definition digital audio version of the original source material which has this fan super excited. Frank Zappa Halloween 77 the box set is a triumph of a release and will hopefully herald more releases in the not too distant future. If there even half as amazing as this release you have one constant purchaser here.

Many thanks to all involved for the entire production. It's all been greatly appreciated by this fan and is providing me with hours of enjoyment(that's a whopping 15 hours plus fellow fans.)

PS. For those who will only get the CD's because of being scared of USB sticks or something, do yourself a favor and try to overcome it as you'll be loosing hours of material that you will seriously want to hear. Each concert features some great variations on the more lengthy pieces and surprises in each and every concert. I envy the cool fans who actually attended each and every concert on these days. What a treat that must have been, it certainly is for this fan right now and for the future thanks to this box set.

The '77/'78 band has always been one of my top 3 favourite FZ live bands. And while I have decent audience recordings from all 6 shows, this set emphasizes all of their strong points. Whether it's the innate humour intertwined with absolute top shelf instrumental skill, FZ's blistering guitar solos in City Of Tiny Lights & Black Napkins, Wolf and Mars' mind-blowing keyboard improvisations in A Pound For A Brown & Wild Love, Belew's vocal command & guitar dominance, or Bozzio's solos & drumming mastery, this band pretty much has it all. And the multiple liner notes, especially the insight from Adrian Belew, are worth reading more than once. My only criticism is that on this tour, FZ didn't change the setlists that much. However, that's almost not even worth mentioning because I'm extremely impressed with this box set!

The '77/'78 band has always been one of my top 3 favourite FZ live bands. And while I have decent audience recordings from all 6 shows, this set emphasizes all of their strong points. Whether it's the innate humour intertwined with absolute top shelf instrumental skill, FZ's blistering guitar solos in City Of Tiny Lights & Black Napkins, Wolf and Mars' mind-blowing keyboard improvisations in A Pound For A Brown & Wild Love, Belew's vocal command & guitar dominance, or Bozzio's solos & drumming mastery, this band pretty much has it all. And the multiple liner notes, especially the insight from Adrian Belew, are worth reading more than once. My only criticism is that on this tour, FZ didn't change the setlists that much. However, that's almost not even worth mentioning because I'm extremely impressed with this box set!

Right on Disco Boy, couldn't agree more, Halloween 77 is fucking amazing and that's putting it lightly. I also was surprised at the similar set lists as Frank used to mention how he liked to make each show unique and different so it wasn't just like 'punching the clock,' so to speak. I guess he did with these in terms of the audience participation but I think he wanted to give the audience the perfection of this set. Also as the shows progress they get larger and more songs are added. Pieces like 'Wild Love' get longer and longer(and more interesting and more interesting.) Did you notice how they also get better and better each time? That amazed me. I was worried they were going to wear out but they just kept getting better and better. Seriously awesome musicians.

The '77/'78 band has always been one of my top 3 favourite FZ live bands. And while I have decent audience recordings from all 6 shows, this set emphasizes all of their strong points. Whether it's the innate humour intertwined with absolute top shelf instrumental skill, FZ's blistering guitar solos in City Of Tiny Lights & Black Napkins, Wolf and Mars' mind-blowing keyboard improvisations in A Pound For A Brown & Wild Love, Belew's vocal command & guitar dominance, or Bozzio's solos & drumming mastery, this band pretty much has it all. And the multiple liner notes, especially the insight from Adrian Belew, are worth reading more than once. My only criticism is that on this tour, FZ didn't change the setlists that much. However, that's almost not even worth mentioning because I'm extremely impressed with this box set!

Right on Disco Boy, couldn't agree more, Halloween 77 is fucking amazing and that's putting it lightly. I also was surprised at the similar set lists as Frank used to mention how he liked to make each show unique and different so it wasn't just like 'punching the clock,' so to speak. I guess he did with these in terms of the audience participation but I think he wanted to give the audience the perfection of this set.

Good point. For this particular band, at least, the setlist was either perfect, or very close to it. So on that level, it didn't really matter if it didn't change that much.

Spaceresearcher wrote:

Also as the shows progress they get larger and more songs are added. Pieces like 'Wild Love' get longer and longer(and more interesting and more interesting.) Did you notice how they also get better and better each time? That amazed me. I was worried they were going to wear out but they just kept getting better and better. Seriously awesome musicians.

Absolutely! Just about every show is better than the last, leading right up to Halloween night!

Right on Disco Boy, couldn't agree more, Halloween 77 is fucking amazing and that's putting it lightly. I also was surprised at the similar set lists as Frank used to mention how he liked to make each show unique and different so it wasn't just like 'punching the clock,' so to speak. I guess he did with these in terms of the audience participation but I think he wanted to give the audience the perfection of this set. Also as the shows progress they get larger and more songs are added. Pieces like 'Wild Love' get longer and longer(and more interesting and more interesting.) Did you notice how they also get better and better each time? That amazed me. I was worried they were going to wear out but they just kept getting better and better. Seriously awesome musicians.

I would think that the similar set list was more for the filming of B.S. than anything else. First few shows could have been warm up's for the 3 nights of filming. Keeping the songs in the same sequence is way better for editing options across the 3 nights.

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